DADvocate

The once snow white sands...



Did you ever notice that when someone pays a settlement for the accidental death of another, such as in a car crash, that the person killed is still dead? Obama can squeeze BP for money all he wants, but he's not stopping the damage. What will be left when this is all over?

By now everyone and their brother has written about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. To even the casual observer the Obama administration mishandled the event from the start and continues to mishandle it.

Instapundit points out an article in Financial Post about how help from the Dutch was squandered, piddled about, and delayed due to political and bureaucratic bullshit.

The paragraphs Instapundit quotes say an awful lot, not just about the handling of the oil spill but how we can expect Obama style government to work in general, including areas such as health care.

Some are attuned to the possibility of looming catastrophe and know how to head it off. Others are unprepared for risk and even unable to get their priorities straight when risk turns to reality.

The Dutch fall into the first group. Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. “Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour,” Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill.

To protect against the possibility that its equipment wouldn’t capture all the oil gushing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch also offered to prepare for the U.S. a contingency plan to protect Louisiana’s marshlands with sand barriers. One Dutch research institute specializing in deltas, coastal areas and rivers, in fact, developed a strategy to begin building 60-mile-long sand dikes within three weeks. . . .

Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn’t good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million — if water isn’t at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico. . . .

The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer — but only partly. Because the U.S. didn’t want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels. And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained.

A catastrophe that could have been averted is now playing out.

Some are foolish enough the think that Obama's strong arming to get BP to commit to $20 billion to pay to to those damaged by the oil spill is change they can believe in. The change you can really believe in is ineffective, incompetent government serving special interests and seeking to expand its power at every opportunity, no matter what the cost.

I saw the pix below at One Quick Beer, a blog by WLW talk show how Scott Sloan.



I noticed that at the bottom of the picture it said "libertymaniacs.com". Being the curious sort, I made a little trip to LibertyManiacs.com and found lots of stuff the liberty minded would like, t-shirts, bumper stickers, posters, mugs and more. Stuff we can use to counter the absurd Che Guevera t-shirts the lefties love.

A couple of my favorites are the "Trust the Government" t-shirt with a portrait of Sitting Bull on it and the "If I had a dollar for every time that capitalism was blamed for problems caused by the government I'd be a fat film maker with a baseball cap."

Disclosure - I received nothing for this post/endorsement. LibertyManicas.com doesn't know I'm posting it. I just like the stuff.

Instapundit posted a link to an article regarding tying shoelaces. Recently, in the May issue of Boy's Life magazine, the official magazine for Boy Scouts, I came across Ian Fieggen who is an expert in tying shoelaces.

I've always held an interest in knots. When camping it is an easy way to impress friends by using knots especially designed for the needed purpose. The correct knot usually unties easier than an improvised bundle of twisted twine or rope. For starters, learn the square knot, half hitch, double half hitch, clove hitch, sheetbend, bowline, tautline and slip knot. If you frequently tie down loads, learn the trucker's hitch. You'll love it and knots with rope are more reliable than elastic cords.

Ian's Shoelace Site offers more information on tying shoelaces than you knew existed. My favorite is Ian's Knot which is the fastest shoelace knot to tie and holds well. Or, you can do how I did just last night and buy a L.L. Bean Comfort Mocs and forget about tying laces.

Does this woman at a BP protest in NOLA know who is president and vice-president? Is she aware of the pathetic response of Obama and Biden? Will liberals ever get over Bush and Cheney? How long will they try to blame anything and everything on them? When will they finally look at themselves in the mirror and say, "We're a bunch of rubes" or "We're a bunch of useful idiots"?


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